IT’S an event these students will never forget.
Sixth formers from Arnold King Edward School sat a 10-minute memory exam to be part of the world’s largest ever memory test.
The event was being documented by the Guinness Book of Records and had been set up to celebrate Biology Week.
Dr Andrew Treharne, biology teacher and head of general studies at AKS, said: “I wanted to get the school involved in this event.
“There were people from schools, universities and learned societies across the world doing this at exactly the same time.”
More than 60 venues across the country took part in the test at 2.30pm on Friday.
Participants, including the 50 AKS students at their school’s Blackpool campus on Lytham Road, South Shore, were read a list of words and then asked to remember if they had heard certain words.
Rajaan Hutchinson, 16, from Blackpool, said: “It’s interesting to know the results will be used for real scientific research.”
Data collected from the memory test will form a scientific study led by Professor Bruce Hood, a renowned experimental psychologist at the University of Bristol.
The test, called the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm, is used to investigate false memories, such as identifying true and false court testimonies.
The data collected will also go on to inform research into memory that can be helped in Alzheimers research.
Another pupil, Rory Birch, 16, from Lytham, said: “It feels great to know we’ve taken part in a world record attempt.”
Results from the test will now be collated to confirm whether the attempt will make it into the Guinness Book of Records.
Comments